


R.P.N.Z.L.

by eidetic



Category: Rapunzel (Fairy Tale)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, F/F, Fairy Tale Retellings, Outer Space, Robot/Human Relationships, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:56:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25915480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eidetic/pseuds/eidetic
Summary: Aboard a small ship plying the vast outer edges of farspace, there once lived two talented scriveners who had fallen on unexpectedly hard times.“I am hungry,” said one scrivener to the other.“Alas, we have no food or funds to purchase any. We must finish scrivening the sentences for this commission first,” replied her partner scrivener.
Relationships: Königssohn | Prince/Rapunzel
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6
Collections: Rule 63 Exchange 2020





	R.P.N.Z.L.

Aboard a small ship plying the vast outer edges of farspace, there once lived two talented scriveners who had fallen on unexpectedly hard times.

“I am hungry,” said one scrivener to the other.

“Alas, we have no food or funds to purchase any. We must finish scrivening the sentences for this commission first,” replied her partner scrivener.

“But I’m sooo huuungry! Staaarving! I simply cannot concentrate on my sentences like this!” moaned the first scrivener, casting aside her tablet and stylus. “And look at yonder ship’s solargarden!” she cried, her now empty, greedy, unscrivening hands reaching out towards the viewport, as if she could reach right through the clearstone and take the other ship’s vegetables right then and there. “I’ve never seen so much ripe rapunzel! I bet sorcery is involved.” She paused, considering the possibility for a moment before dismissing it, deciding she was too hungry to care. “Aaahhh, I must have the rapunzel. I must have it! I must have it! _I must have it!!_ ”

The second scrivener turned his gaze in the direction his partner scrivener was gesturing. The ship in question was familiar to him—it was a WITCH that passed through their part of farspace at regular intervals—and it did indeed possess a magnificently well-cultivated solargarden full to bursting with ripe rapunzel, enough to feed twenty ships its size for ten tocks or more.

“Perhaps I could…” The second scrivener hesitated. It would be stealing, but would the WITCH’s captain even notice? If the first scrivener refused to scriven, he would not be able to continue scrivening alone, and their commission would not be completed on schedule. It was a valuable commission, and at present it was their only commission. If they failed to deliver the work as promised, then they really _would_ starve to death.

So he took a skiff that very tick and slipped into the WITCH’s solargarden. Once there, he harvested enough rapunzel to feed his partner scrivener for the rest of the tock. It was beyond easy.

Unfortunately, getting caught was even easier.

“I’m within my rights to take your life for this theft,” said the WITCH’s captain to the scrivener.

It was true; this would be standard farspace justice. Terrified, the scrivener pleaded for mercy. He told the captain that the rapunzel wasn’t for him but for his partner scrivener, who was too desperately hungry to scriven.

“Scrivening, did you say?” asked the WITCH’s captain. She sounded intrigued. “I could use a new work. Hmm. Perhaps we can come to an arrangement…”

They came to an arrangement. In return for enough rapunzel to feed _both_ scriveners for the rest of the tock, the scriveners would give the WITCH’s captain the first work they finished scrivening.

This, they did. The finished work was female-identified and given the fabricated-mind-standard-designation: “R.P.N.Z.L.”

The WITCH’s captain installed R.P.N.Z.L. in a private refueling tower, and for unnumbered tocks, R.P.N.Z.L. was happy enough, maintaining the refueling tower whenever her mistress was away and tending to the WITCH whenever the ship was docked. The work was generally simple. Nevertheless, R.P.N.Z.L. took particular pride in the golden docking clamp used to anchor the WITCH to the tower and gave much care and attention to ensuring it was in excellent working order.

“Curses!” she cried. The PRINCE’s captain had been thrown off-course by a plasma storm and had become hopelessly lost in an unfamiliar sector of farspace. The only sign of civilization for lightyears in any direction was a private refueling tower.

It was a risk to approach, but in lieu of any other—never mind better—options, the PRINCE’s captain decided to request permission to dock.

To her surprise, permission was granted. A spectacularly shiny, golden docking clamp took hold of the PRINCE and secured it to the portside of the refueling tower, and when the PRINCE’s captain deboarded her ship, she was greeted by the sweet voice of a female-identified fabricated-mind.

“I am R.P.N.Z.L.,” said the fabricated-mind.

“I’m the captain of the PRINCE,” the PRINCE’s captain replied, “and I’m grateful for your hospitality.”

R.P.N.Z.L. played a light, happy chime in response. “You are very welcome. Shall I refuel you?”

“That would be a pleasure.”

After that first encounter, the PRINCE’s captain started making regular detours to this remote sector of farspace, expressly in order to refuel at R.P.N.Z.L.’s private docking tower and to socialize with R.P.N.Z.L. herself. The PRINCE’s captain had never made the acquaintance of such a beautifully scrivened fabricated-mind. Truly, she decided, R.P.N.Z.L. was one of a kind.

Unfortunately, the WITCH’s captain eventually realized that her private docking tower had ceased to be _private_. She confronted R.P.N.Z.L. with evidence of her treachery. And though R.P.N.Z.L. pleaded, the WITCH’S captain would not be placated. In a fury, she uninstalled R.P.N.Z.L. fro the refueling tower and ejected her memory core into farspace where she could expect to vacuum-float, aimless and idle, for an eternity of ticks and tocks.

Then, the WITCH’s captain laid a trap.

When next the PRINCE’s captain visited and requested R.P.N.Z.L.’s permission to dock, permission was granted as usual, and the golden docking clamp seized the PRINCE as usual and secured it to the refueling tower’s portside. But when the PRINCE’s captain made ready to deboard and enjoy R.P.N.Z.L.’s hospitality while her ship was being refueled, it was not the sweet-voiced fabricated-mind of R.P.N.Z.L. waiting to greet her. Instead, it was the WITCH’s captain—pointing a detonating nuclear burst directly at the interloper.

“I’ll show you like I showed _her_!” shrieked the WITCH’s captain. “Yes, that’s right! I’ll show both of you!”

The burst slammed into the PRINCE with such concussive force that the golden docking clamp, once so beloved by R.P.N.Z.L., was violently shorn in two, and the PRINCE was sent careening, heavily damaged and wholly un-navigable, into dark, lonely depths of farspace.

And it was thus, for uncounted tocks, that the PRINCE’s captain drifted, unable to find her way back to a familiar sector of farspace…until, that is, R.P.N.Z.L.’s memory core just happened to float by within meters of her ship.

“Is this the PRINCE?” asked R.P.N.Z.L., hailing the drifting ship.

“Are you R.P.N.Z.L.?!” cried the PRINCE’s captain into her communicator. “I’ve lost all navigational functionality. I’m effectively flying blind.”

“Shall I assist you?” asked R.P.N.Z.L., her sweet voice unable to contain her delight at this reunion with the PRINCE’s captain.

Of course the PRINCE’s captain agreed, and R.P.N.Z.L. became the PRINCE’s very own, one and only fabricated-mind. With R.P.N.Z.L.’s assistance, the PRINCE was rehabilitated and navigated back to the sectors of farspace well known to the PRINCE’s captain.

From then on, R.P.N.Z.L. and the PRINCE’s captain plied the currents of farspace on the PRINCE together, and they were happily inseparable forever after.


End file.
